To think the government have lost touch with reality?

[AdamRyan]

Johnson wants us all back on the office; meanwhile Rees-Mogg is waging war on the civil service, leaving snarky PA notes, telling them to get into the office and cutting 20% of jobs. I can't even imagine how low morale in the civil service must be.

At the same time my industry is finding it very tough to recruit and most applicants expect hybrid/remote working.

I think the government are seriously out of touch with reality here.

IABU - get into the office, workshy stay at home dossiers

IANBU - hybrid/home working is here to stay and they are being dinosaurs

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-cheese-coffee-wfh-working-home-b2078796.html%3famp

@AdamRyan LOST? You're implying that at some point they were in touch with reality, YABVU.

I'm sure PCS had some figures showing HMPO was genuinely more efficient working from home. I wouldn't judge them based on the (seemingly huge number on aibu of) people who are panicking because they forgot to renew early enough.

😂

Just not true
If this were true, why are there so many delays in hmrc/passport office/dvla?
It's because they are short staffed, not because their staff are skiving

In private it’s fairly easy (to remove people if they are not needed), how about the public sector?

IME it's not so much about whether it can be done, rather whether anyone's willing to take responsibility for having a department full of people who do very little.
Remember that more employees mean more funding, and it's often through this that managers show the importance of their little paper empires - also why some rely on screams about "savage cuts" if there's the slightest question about the status quo or their own inertia

In fairness this doesn't just apply to the public sector, but the flaccid management, lack of accountability and the fact it's not their own money they're spending mean it's all too common there

As a PP said, the sector has a reputation for a reason, and it's not just because of silly headlines

Both county council and district council here did exactly that years ago. The building where I used to work is now a wedding venue!

My employer used to be a bit weird about home working, even expecting staff working out in the community to come back to the office at the end of the day to update client records. They relaxed that quite a bit after it was raised by a few staff in grievances and collectively via the staff forum.

They found they saved loads of money in mileage expenses and moved area offices to smaller premises, saving even more. The Covid happened and they've now moved to even smaller premises!

They're not insisting anyone goes in FT apart from reception staff. The official hybrid working policy is for one day pw in the office, but I only work 3 mornings so I only go in if I feel like it.

We've found ways of working that are much better, operationally speaking. I no longer do an 80 mile round trip to help a client with a PIP form, I gather the info over the phone and either email it to them or post a hard copy. Having a record of that saves loads of time if we need to appeal a decision, too, with some tweaking it's the grounds of appeal. Starting from scratch it would be a full day's work, now it takes an hour.

Pretty sure Johnson wittering on about cheese is so when you Google "Boris cheese" or "Tory cheese" it comes up with this rather than all the illegal cheese and wine parties they had during lockdown. He's done it before, he'll do it again, anything to distract from their latest scandal

@sst1234

Whilst I personally don’t know exactly what those 70 people are doing, COP26 wasnt just an event, things were agreed which now have to be implemented and delivered. Delivery needs people to you know .. deliver.

This is just indicative of the total lack of understanding of who and what then civil service is.
As for ridicuous comments about getting rid of 90 % of the public sector - off the top of my head, thats no teachers, firefighters, police, coast guard, nurses and doctors, no tax collection, no one to pay pensions and benefits, no courts, no passports, no driving licences, no logistical support to the armed forces, no fod standards … I could go on
I think you would notice

A long time ago tbh. This was absolutely the WORST time to be loading everyone with extra taxes, stopping the triple lock, taking away the 20 uplift forcing millions of disabled people onto UC and not raising help for the oldest, sickest and poorest in society. It is OK for Rishi to make excuses as to why benefits can't be raised because ' Computer says No' when it costs the equivalent of two ANNUAL pensions just to heat his new swimming pool or George Eustice to say buy own brands when I read in the papers today that the costs of own brand items are rising by 30% in some cases. Out of touch doesn't begin to describe it!!

I’m sure your argument is exactly the one used by the people who justify 80 administrators for an event that has been and gone.

I know some people who are worried about how they are going to afford to travel to work with the rise in fuel prices/train fares on top of all the other price/tax hikes. They have cut off people's disposable income so people will spend less. If there is less money in ypur pocket, you are hardly going to be buying 3.50 cups of coffee and 7 a day on lunch outside to keep coffee shops going. You will need every penny for yourself and/or your family!

Weren't at least 12,000 of them new 'work coaches' at job centres tasked with pushing anyone unfortunate enough to be unemployed into any old job just to get the figures down?

You would think ut would be first to go - but I’ve spent the past few weeks in a busy corporate part of London

It’s heaving - queues for coffees at Pret and Itsu at lunch etc

I don’t remember it being like that when I was there a few years ago, maybe I just didn’t notice

You sound like the PM. No facts, just your feeling. We're not all the same, not all industries are the same. This is the 21st century.

But working in a workplace can be exactly the same.

I think because I work in a sector that has high level of SME and contracts easily in recession I’m very used to businesses making redundancies if they need to.

the case is made on a business level and it goes through the process

I’m not sure what the equivalent is, maybe funding does go and it’s the same

I find it quite charming to be honest. I have worked my arse of for one of the largest government departments keeping the bloody show on the road and helping keep the public safe throughout the pandemic from home, my salary was frozen, and now not only am I being repeatedly called "lazy" I'm being threatened with redundancy to boot.

It fucking stinks to be honest. I work from home 7am-4.30pm and have generally a minimum of 2-3 MS teams meetings with key internal and stakeholders every day. I can't imagine how it would be possible to do this in person and the cost to the public purse for the additional travel budget would be enormous. Why would I go and sit in an office on my own 3 days a week and speak to people on MS teams?!

What covid restrictions are still in place? I thought all restrictions had now been scrapped.

Stephen Barclay MP is behind all this - the chancellor of The duchy of Lancaster - he manages a massive portfolio of commercial properties on behalf of the crown around the country. He wants us all back in the office to justify the massive portfolio and spending our pennies in Costa.

I don't know of any government that has ever been in touch.

And, regardless of how far out of touch this government is, it is an impossible task to do the right thing by everyone so it is impossible to be in touch.

A minimum of 2 strong 'parties' is necessary to get strong policies and strong opposite and come up with a 'least bad' situation, with leadership of the country alternating to prevent anything going too far in one direction.

Unfortunately, we have got neither a strong party in power nor an electable opposition.

Refuse collectors, postman/woman, delivery drivers, builders, nursery staff, power plant workers, the list of jobs that can't be done at home goes on and on.

It shows what they think about the average worker, as the party allied with the big bosses. That if people are at home they will be slacking off.

I’m always amused how a govt who espouses ‘individual freedom’ and “market forces’ behaves when these freedoms and forces upset the Tory donors….

if young worker preference is to have wfh as an option if possible, and most businesses who used wfh instead of furlough didn’t see productivity fall through the floor, what’s it got to do with the government?

If there’s evidence that despite not having enough desks for everyone, the backlog of things suspended like driving tests, no travel, Brexit, that delays in DVLA, HMRC etc are entirely due to wfh, say so. But to piffle on describing his normal ‘working’ day as one spent in a fridge again as evidence that the thousands wfh are shirking, nah. Go and fix something that IS your job and get your nose out of how I do mine.

I'm confused here somewhat. They are still going in 3 days a week anyway? Why does having a nibble of cheese stop concentration when a coffee is OK. No idea why everyone back ft london is good as more congestion people driving to the station/being dropped off

I’m very used to businesses making redundancies if they need to ...
the case is made on a business level and it goes through the process

That makes perfect sense, Marsha, but again it's the processes which can be especially ineffective in the public sector

They exist of course, but they're not much use if nobody's responsible for them, or if those who are are constantly in pointless meetings, off sick, on leave or just plain not doing the job because they know perfectly well nobody will monitor this